Sherlock's Medicine
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: ****Yet another song inspired fic, this one 'Medicine' by Daughter. Can Mary Morstan possibly pull Sherlock from a post-return depression when nobody else can? Even John Watson?


**Sherlock's Medicine**

Mrs Hudson ushered Mary into the upstairs flat of 221B early one afternoon and quickly disappeared downstairs once again. Inwardly she was happy that Sherlock Holmes was still alive, but she was still angry with him, and he could tell had not yet completely forgiven him for what he'd put them all through for the past two long years. He'd been back in London for almost a month now, and things were still fraught between John and he. Even John Watson however had had to admit that his best friend had been uncharacteristically quiet since his return, and Mycroft, evidently overwhelmed by his concern for his brother had finally persuaded him to prescribe some mild anti-depressants for Sherlock – not that judging by the state of the flat, Mary now observed, he'd been taking them. It wasn't that the world's only consulting Detective was depressed in the clinical sense, but he'd been having a rather hard time readjusting to life back in London since his return and his brother had been under the impression that the medication might in some way help. Secretly the doctor knew however that Mycroft's only reason for getting in contact with him had been his concern that if left to his own devices Sherlock might once again turn to other, illegal substances to treat his boredom.

Nobody had seen him now for several days however, and finally, unable to ignore his own mounting anxieties any longer, John had asked Mary to pay Sherlock a visit at home during her afternoon off.

Although as she stepped through the threshold into the darkened space which had once been at the centre of Sherlock and John's world she hadn't quite prepared herself for the sight which met her eyes. Sherlock had obviously seen fit to unpack since his return – the empty cardboard boxes which had once contained what had remained of Sherlock's belongings after Mrs Hudson had got rid of what she could – were piled up in the corner of the room, but the rest of the flat was in disarray, and it looked as though the curtains hadn't been opened in days.

"Don't tell me," A small voice emanated from somewhere on the other side of the room, and Mary jumped as her eyes readjusted to the unnatural gloom of her new surroundings, "he's got you checking up on me now has he? But he still doesn't have the grit to come and see me for himself?"

As she turned she spotted the source of the disembodied voice, and sighed and smiled as she waited for her racing heart to slow. Sherlock Holmes was lying on the sofa in a darkened corner of the room, buried underneath a pile of blankets.

"He's worried about you." She explained.

"He hates me." Sherlock declared. His voice was still strong, but he sounded tired – as though he hadn't slept in days.

"He doesn't hate you Sherlock," She sighed as she stepped over to the window in order to open the curtains and inject some much needed light into the darkened room, "he loves you. If he hated you he wouldn't care if you were still alive or not. He was a broken man when he thought that you were dead," she explained, "he's just hurt now that he's found out you've been alive all this time and yet you never even attempted to let him know."

As she threw the curtains open she disturbed a large plume of dust which had settled upon the surface of the fabric and was sent mushrooming out into the atmosphere, making her cough.

"I couldn't," Sherlock muttered sadly to himself under his breath – and once Mary had sufficiently recovered herself she turned to look at him in the refreshing daylight now streaming through the windows and illuminating the small sitting room. She couldn't figure out whether the melancholic expression upon his face was born of an intense sadness, or whether he was simply brooding, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that one way or the other Sherlock had spent the best part of the past few days wallowing in self-pity, "they would have killed him if I had." He declared.

"I know." She smiled sympathetically, and in what she hoped would be a pacifying gesture.

"He doesn't need me anymore anyway Mary." He sighed, and there was a distinctly bitter undertone to his voice as he spat, "He's got you."

"He hasn't replaced you Sherlock," She did her best to assure him as she made her way back into the centre of the room and began to busy herself with tidying away the empty cardboard boxes, piles of dust covered books, and what remained of Sherlock's chemistry set, which had been carelessly discarded all over the room, "no one could ever do that." She explained, "I might be his lover, but you're still his best friend. It's a completely different type of love."

"Can I just ask?" He snapped, throwing the blankets aside in a tempestuous display of his exasperation, and swinging his slender body over the side of the sofa as he attempted to sit up. "Why do you even care? You don't know me!" He turned to look at her with venom in his eyes.

"Because you're a good man Sherlock." Mary explained, sorting through a set of leather bound books in her hand, before deciding that the best place for them would be the empty bookcase pushed up against the wall in the furthest corner of the room. "Beneath that hard, cold, distant exterior you hide behind you have a good heart. Only someone who cared for John very deeply would have done what you did, and made the sacrifices you made – and because you have a great mind, too beautiful a brain to waist it all moping around here."

"I'm not the man I used to be." He snarled. "I'm not the man I was when John first met me."

"But you could be." She urged him. Sherlock Holmes could be an awkward man to deal with at the best of times, let alone when he was in a fragile frame of mind. It had seemed to Mary from what John had told her of his best friend that he'd been the only one Sherlock had really responded to throughout the comparatively short time they'd known each other – he could calm him when he was angry, cheer him when he was low, and pull him up when he was unintentionally abrupt or rood without too much reproach from the consulting detective – but Mary too, like her lover, could prove just as much a match for Sherlock Holmes, and was not so easily swayed by his display of temper. "You could have everything the two of you had before, and so much more. You've got a second chance Sherlock. Most people would give anything for that. Don't waist it."

"What do I do?" Sherlock asked.

"You're home now Sherlock. You're not alone anymore, and believe it or not there are still people out there who care about you, people who never stopped loving you, and certainly never for a moment stopped believing in you."

"Yes, but what do I do?" He asked.

"You salvage what you can of the past," She told him, "you pick up the pieces and you start again. You get up out of that seat, you wash, you get changed, you go downstairs, you walk out of that front door and you face the world. You prove to all those people who never gave up on you that their faith wasn't misplaced in Sherlock Holmes."

"And if I don't?" Sherlock looked at her, defiance in his eyes. "What then?"

"Well," She smiled, "you could stay here, lie there for the rest of your life whilst the rest of the world carries on around you, and never look at a single case again. John and I would get married, and you might see each other occasionally but nowhere near befitting enough for the best friends I know deep down the two of you to be… but somehow though Sherlock I don't think that's really your style."

She rose to leave, feeling the consulting Detective's cold eyes upon her as she made a move towards the front door.

But before she left Mary turned to look back at the man still donned in dressing gown and wrapped in blankets upon the sofa one last time. She saw the life return to that emaciated form and the sparkle to those cold, dead eyes, and she realised – this talk had been all the medicine Sherlock Holmes had really needed.


End file.
